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Tigers overpower Cougars in boys track

In an interesting “measuring stick” meet last Tuesday, the boys’ track team at Germantown Friends played host to the George School Cougars, who are considered the top challengers in the Friends Schools League to 2011 co-champions GFS and Westtown.

The Tigers passed the regular-season test convincingly, gathering points from across the spectrum of events to win 98-52 in front of the home crowd.

Senior Derek Kern proved to be a regular iron man for the host team, finishing first in four different field events. He dominated the three throwing contests, discus (95’1.5”), javelin (134’10”), and shot put (32’4”), and he also won the pole vault, clearing the bar at 10’6”.

Junior Eliott Baron won the 300-meter intermediate hurdles for host Germantown Friends in last week’s George School meet. (Photo by Tom Utescher)

“I hated to load him up like that, but we don’t have a lot of depth in the throws, so he really helps us there,” commented Germantown coach Tom Myran. “I was impressed with what he did in the javelin, because last year he was throwing in the mid-120’s, and in this meet he actually had two throws over 130 feet.”

Conversely, the coach noted, “the distance events are always a strength for us.”

Here, the Tigers were able to spread the workload around, with even the top athletes from the school’s accomplished cross country squad not having to race more than once or twice during the afternoon.

In the 3200, juniors Sami Aziz and Henry Shah ran side-by-side throughout the race, sharing the winning time of 10 minutes, 35.8 seconds.

There were one-two finishes for GFS in the 1600 and the 800, as well. Junior Lyle Wistar won the 1600 (4:40.4) just a step ahead of teammate Christian Brady (4:40.6). Brady, a senior, will continue his running career at Dickinson College.

In the 800, senior Kyle Musto clocked in first at 2:05.4 and sophomore James Finney was runner-up in 2:06.3.

GFS had started off the meet with a victory in a sprint relay, the 4 x 100. Senior Nick Miller, junior Jordan May, Uriah West, and freshman Ahshar Williams completed the one-lap race in 45.2 seconds, three seconds ahead of the George School quartet.

May went on to win both the 200 (23.2) and the 400 (51.3), while Williams won the 100 meters (11.8) and was runner-up in the 200 (23.5) and the high jump (5’10”). On the track, Tigers junior Patrick Araya was third in the 400 meters (55.1).

Miller, meanwhile, saw a lot of action in the field events. He won the long jump (18’6”) and placed third in both the triple jump (35’8”) and the pole vault (8’6”). West was third in the long jump, at 15’10”.

Surrounded by good George School hurdlers, GFS junior Eliott Baron pulled out some points for the host school by winning the 300 intermediates with a new PR of 42.5 seconds and taking third in the 110 high hurdles (18.2).

“Eliott has put in the work, and it’s nice to see it starting to pay off for him,” Myran said.

The Tigers put an exclamation point on the meet victory with a 14-second victory in the final event, the 4 x 400 relay. The winning time of 3:35.9 was recorded by May, Musto, and juniors Jonathan Bailey and Araya. Coming in third in the same race was the GFS quartet of Finney, juniors Jeremy Wright and Paul Maxson, and freshman Mathias Hammer.

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